Thursday, September 29, 2011

Since I started my Etsy shop and this blog, I've become much more aware of fashion trends than I ever was before and I've learned terms I'd never even heard of. Let's face it, as a stay-at-home-mom, New York's Fashion Week is in no way going to affect my everyday life. But every once in awhile I come across a trend that I just love (even if I am late to the game) and this inspiration board is dedicated to my new favorite trend: ombre!

According to FabSugar, ombre comes from a French word and means "shaded." The ombre trend of late has been seen in nail polish, dresses, even hair. Here are a few amazing ombre finds from Etsy to inspire you!

But then when I started searching, I realized what "adult Halloween costumes" usually means... trust me, it was hard to find wholesome grown-up costumes, especially for us ladies. So I did the work for you and I now present you with the 15 best family-friendly DIY costumes for adults!

Real Life Lichtenstein Comic Girl by M.A.C. Cosmetics

Spider Web Mama and Baby by Martha Stewart

Pregnant Skeleton and Matching Husband by Make It And Love It

No-Sew Jellyfish by Martha Stewart

Sock Monkey by HGTV

No-Sew Bat Costume by Martha Stewart

Dino Man by My Li'l Pumpkin

Optimus Prime by dannyeurena

Popeye by mikeasaurus

Paparazzi by cockeyed

Toy Army Man by PuckstoppingPoke

And now for the Best Family Costumes:

The Incredibles by Freshly Completed

B.L.T. Sandwich by Parents

S'mores Family by Disney's Family Fun

Cop and Robbers by Living Locurto

It seems like this is turning into a blog series. How about DIY pet costumes next?

Monday, September 19, 2011

Do you love these Deal-a-Day sites that keep popping up? I love to check them out and they're quite addictive. My favorite one is Mamabargains:

MamaBargains was the first deal-a-day site I'd ever heard of and I've bought several things from them in the past few years. I recently became an affiliate of theirs (did you notice my first two ads in the sidebar?) because I just love MamaBargains!

Why do we like these deal-a-day sites so much?

I think it's because we are in the over-information age and these sites make life a bit more simple by just featuring one deal at a time. Ahhh, simplicity is so nice sometimes.

Here are a few more that I check regularly:

I'm thinking that given the time of year, I need to start browsing deal-a-day sites for Christmas gift ideas!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Just in case you missed my guest post over at Craftionary last week...

I'm sharing with you a tutorial and game that you can play with kids ages 2 through 6. (Older kids would probably enjoy it, too, especially helping teach the younger ones.) Young children tend to relate well to animals. So why not use animals to help teach kids about emotions in a charades-style game?

I graduated with my Master's degree in School Psychology 2 weeks before Little Sweets was born and I became a stay-at-home-mom. Now that she is 2 years old, I've been enjoying finding ways to help her learn to recognize and deal with her emotions.

The Emotional Animals Game is played by rolling the "dice" and acting out whatever you roll. Let's let Little Sweets show you how it's done:

Easy as that!

All you really need for this game is a permanent marker and two square solid-colored blocks from a set like this:

I painted two of Little Sweets' unfinished wood square blocks with some craft store paint, but that is totally optional.

Now you're going to want to pick out some emotions to write on one of your dice. There are four basic emotions, from which most other emotions come: mad, sad, happy and scared. Then there are plenty of other options for you to pick from. Just think about which feelings or states you'd want to teach your child(ren) about.

Next, pick six animals that are relatively easy to mimic. We chose: cat, dog, monkey, cow, mouse and elephant. (Elephant is a little harder than the others...maybe a bird would've been easier?)

Now let's see your best "silly dog"!

Hmmm, what would a scared elephant look like?

This game can also be taken a step further, depending on your child's readiness to explore emotions deeper. For instance, when Little Sweets acts out a mad animal, we can talk about the best ways to handle anger. Put it in terms of how an animal might react because, again, young children tend to relate well to animals.

I hope you and your kids enjoy playing this game and learning about emotions together!

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Saturday, September 3, 2011

This morning, we went to a little lake near our house. They have paddle boats, rope swings and slides into the lake, a swimming pool with a 2-story waterslide, a splash pad for the little ones and a lazy river.

Little Sweets surprised us by wanting to go down the big waterslide over and over again. She's usually very cautious but she loved the ride on our laps! I lounged a bit by the pool while my Sweets took Little Sweets in the pool. See them there by the yellow slide?

Since the lake and the pools were a bit retro (that's the nice way of putting it!), I decided to put some retro flair to our photos using the Instagram app. So fun and I think it's another thing I'm going to soon become obsessed with.